1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to semiconductor components, and more specifically to a method for manufacturing a substrate of semiconductor-on-insulator type. The present invention also relates to the structure obtained by this method.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Various methods for manufacturing silicon-on-insulator type structures (SOI) are known.
A first method comprises using two silicon wafers, one of which has an oxidized surface, and gluing them so that the oxidized surface is located between the two wafers. An etching or any other chemical or mechanical operation is then performed to decrease the surface of a wafer and thus obtained the desired SOI structure. This method is relatively reliable, but it is limited by the fact that it only enables forming full-plate SOI structures.
Another method comprises creating, on a single-crystal silicon wafer, an insulator layer provided with an opening. A silicon epitaxy is then performed on this system and enables forming, at the level of the opening, a single-crystal silicon portion and, on the insulator layer, a polysilicon layer. A recrystallization step turns the entire layer into single-crystal silicon. This method enables positioning of SOI areas on a silicon wafer but is not very reliable and does not enable obtaining extended SOI areas.